The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing an optical fiber tape core wire, a manufacturing device of the same, and an optical fiber tape core wire and an optical fiber cable manufactured by the method.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2007-178883 (PTL1) discloses an optical fiber tape core wire including four sub-unit tapes which are arranged side by side and are integrated with tape resin. Each sub-unit tape includes four optical fiber wires which are arranged side by side and are integrally coated with tape resin. Markings are printed on the surface of the integrating tape resin for identifying each sub-unit tape.
The markings include identification patterns (for example, dot marks) which can identify each sub-unit tape when the optical fiber tape core wire is separated into the sub-unit tapes. For example, the first sub-unit tape has a print of a one-dot mark, the second sub-unit tape has a print of two-dot mark, the third sub-unit mark has a print of a three-dot mark, and the fourth sub-unit mark has a print of a four-dot mark.
When the optical fiber tape core wire with such a print is separated into the individual sub-unit tapes, a sub-unit tape including the one-dot mark can be visually identified as the first sub-unit tape.
However, in the optical fiber tape core wire of PTL 1, the markings are printed on the surface of the tape resin with which the four sub-unit tapes are integrated. If each separated sub-unit tape is further separated into individual optical fiber wires, the dot marks used as the identifiers of the sub-units are therefore removed. Accordingly, it is not known which sub-unit tape each separated optical fiber wire is associated with. In order to solve the above problem, it is possible to print marks on the optical fiber wires themselves. However, this requires two printing steps and complicates the manufacturing process.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a method of manufacturing an optical fiber tape core wire with which, even when the optical fiber tape core wire is separated into optical fiber wires, it can be determined using markings formed by one time print which optical fiber tape core wire each of the optical fiber wires is associated with and the positions of the printed markings can be aligned, a manufacturing device of the same, and an optical fiber tape core wire and an optical fiber cable manufactured by the above method.